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Summary and Recomendations (no spoilers)

    SUMMARY! NO SPOILERS!

If you haven't yet read the back of Flowers for Algernon, you probably don't really know what it is about. The main character is named Charlie Gordon. He is a mentally retarded man with a desire to learn. There is a scientific break-through, and scientists figure out a way to increase Charlie's I.Q through an operation that has been tested before on a rat named Algernon. After undergoing the surgery, Charlie learns a lot, and I don't just mean intellectually. Charlie begins to discover thing about himself that he had long forgotten...

And that's all I'm going to say! HA HA! You will just have to read the book to find out the rest!!!!

RECOMMENDATIONS

I really recommend this book!!!! It was REALLY good!!! It's interesting from the beginning to the end. It's a little sad, so if you hate that then this book isn't for you. I still think it's a great book though, and I highly suggest it. 

Irony By: Shannon Doran

The thing that was most ironic about Flowers For Algernon was the fact that he got smart and lost his friends, but when he got "dumb" he won friends. He thought that if he got smart he would make more friends since he would be like everyone else, but in reality Algernon was there the whole time, and Algernon was a true friend. Charlie thought the people at the bakery were his friends when they really were just making fun of him. No one should be made fun of, especially for the reason they were making fun of Charlie. Even though the ending was ironic it really tied the story together and ended the story.

Theme by Janet C and Gabby Y

The theme of Flowers for Algernon is that people treats others badly but that people of any intellect should deserve the same respect. For example, Charlie gets laughed at by his co-workers at the bakery, but he believes that they are his true friends. As he gets smarter, he realizes that the workers aren't really his friends and that they are only making fun of him. The workers begin to resent him and sign a petition to get him fired. Also, Nemur and Strauss (the scientist and therapist for his experiment) didn't look at Charlie as a human being before the experiment. Although the operation was to increase Charlie's intelligence, it was mainly for themselves.
Charlie evolves you see that he was still a person when he was mentally retarded. He begins to feel that the scientists are only using him as a guinea pig.
Therefore, the theme we were able to find is that a person, no matter what intellect they have, is still a person.

Point of View by Avi Solkoff

The point of view of this Story is from a retarded 32 year old man named Charlie who has been givin the chance to be as smart, even smarter than everyone else. On the way he finds out that being smart isn't what it is cracked up to be. You see through the chaging views he has on issues and with others changes as he goes from "childhood" behavior to a more "adult" behavior and thought. Charlie is the main character/ narrator of the story who through daily responses talks about what has happened that day or week to him and his pal Algernon, a mouse who went through the same operation as Charlie to become smart. It is a diary in a way but instead of diary it is called a progress report which he must do as proof of his progress mentally. You see Charlie all over the child-adult spectrum when dealing with issues, or recalling a past event. The Point of View of the story helps to progress the story to what it is.

Point of View

Symbolism By Janet Chen

I think that Algernon represents Charlie Gordon more in a emotional way because they both began to feel irritated and frustrated. They both went through the same operation, so Algernon's changes will predict what will happen to Charlie. When Algernon begins to forget things, it shows that the same will happen to Charlie as well. Algernon also represents how they are only viewed as experimental animals, like how he is locked in a cage and Charlie feels like he's behind a cage too during the presentation. Charlie feels that he has never been considered as a individual, a human being.

Biography of Daniel Keyes: by, Gabby Yannotti

Daniel Keyes was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 9, 1927. At age 17, Daniel Keyes joined the U.S. Maritime Service. He obtained a B.A. in psychology from Brooklyn College and earned a Master's degree in English and American literature at night while teaching English in New York City public schools during the day and writing weekends. With his hectic schedule, it didn’t seem like Keyes would pop out an award winning novel any time soon, yet that is exactly what he did. He had written many books, including Fifth Sally, The Minds of Billy Milligan, The Touch, Unveiling Claudia, and the memoir Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey, but the book he is famous for is Flowers for Algernon. The novel was joint winner of the Nebula Award in 1966. It also won the science fiction field's Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction. Flowers for Algernon has been adapted several times for other media, most prominently as the 1968 film Charly, starring Cliff Robertson (who won an Academy Award for Best Actor) and Claire Bloom. Today he is a resident of South Florida. A new novel by Daniel Keyes, The Asylum Prophecies is slated for publication October 2009 by Dorchester Publishing. He plans to continue with his writing. As it was said by Charlie Gordon, “There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin."

Foreshadowing by Gabby Yannotti

The novel that I am currently reading, Flowers for Algernon, uses foreshadowing. For those of you who don't remember, foreshadowing is when an author leaves clues as to what will happen next in the story, or how it will end. Flowers for Algernon was not a predictable book, but there was some foreshadowing. You see, the main character, Charlie Gordon, was a mentally retarded adult. Scientists had come up with a solution to cure his retardation. I can't go into detail about what they DID to cure him, (because I'm a bit unsure about that) but I know that they had to perform a surgery. But before they did the surgery on Charlie, they tested it on a rat named Algernon.

Algernon plays a key role because he is the source of foreshadowing. Everything that happens to Algernon happens to Charlie. When the experiment works, you are pretty sure that it will work on Charlie. Of course, its not always definite because Algernon is a rat, and Charlie is a human.

Another way that Daniel Keyes (the author of Flowers for Algernon) uses foreshadowing is through text. When Charlie begins to get smarter, he uses more advanced vocabulary in his log. Although Charlie doesn't see much of a difference at first, the readers can. It can be assumed that Charlie will continue to become smarter. This also happens around the end of the book. The readers can see the way Charlie writes change, and he begins to use simpler vocabulary. Even though Charlie describes what it is like for him to get smarter, and then for him to lose that intellect, the reader can understand better and make assumptions with Charlie's writing skills.